A Vote for Stand For Children Indiana is a Stand Against IPS Children

Written by Wildstyle Paschall, a community advocate and strategist, renowned local photographer, and founder of All317HipHop. 

Why is the house on fire? 

Roughly 100 firefighters are convicted of arson each year in North America, with all of them being serial arsonists according to experts. Recently IPS Commissioner Angelia L. Moore argued in the Indianapolis Recorder that in regards to Indianapolis Public Schools:

“The house is on fire, and our children are inside. Are we going to stand outside arguing about whose water hose to use, who controls it, or where to aim it? Or are we going to come together to put out the fire and save our children?” 

While I agree with Commissioner Moore’s declaration that IPS is indeed on fire, I believe she’s leaving out that the "arsonists" who started the fires in the first place now want to control the firefighting efforts. One of the lead arsonists, Stand For Children Indiana, funded 94% of Commissioner Moore’s current school board campaign. The real story is that Stand for Children Indiana's advocacy against IPS and IPS families has brought $24 million in IPS budget cuts--with at least $20 million more to come--and loss of property tax revenue, control over its taxpayer-funded school facilities, and authority over student transportation. If this fire was literal instead of figurative, they’d be one of the 100 firefighters convicted of arson each year. Stand For Children Indiana was seeded 15 years ago by another notoriously exploitative education nonprofit called The Mind Trust to be a political arm to extend paternalism over Black communities. And for the last 15 years Stand For Children Indiana in partnership with The Mind Trust has worked tirelessly to manufacture crisis after crisis for IPS through its legislative partners in the Indiana Statehouse. 

2011 - Rewarding the $1 law authors

Stand For Children Indiana was founded in 2011, the same year the legislature enacted the infamous HB 1002 $1 law that required public school districts to make unused, closed, or underutilized school buildings to charter schools for $1 a year or a $1 purchase price. This financially kneecapped IPS schools who owned and operated aging buildings in Center Township, a township with less than half the population it had in the 1960s. Stand For Children Indiana would go on to contribute to the campaigns of two of the bill's authors, including Mary Ann Sullivan who it endorsed to be on the IPS school board itself so she could undermine it from within. 

2011 - 2025 Silent Consent for Private School Vouchers 

In 2017 Stand For Children National CEO Jonah Edelman co-wrote the Los Angeles Times Op-Ed: “School Vouchers don’t just undermine public schools, they undermine our democracy." Stand For Children Indiana has never spoken against Indiana’s $500 million + private school voucher expansion that mostly goes to higher income families making over $100,000 a year, but it's contributed to at least 19 of the 32 lawmakers responsible for private school voucher expansion.

2023 - Opposing the IPS Operating Referendum 

When IPS proposed bringing an operating referendum to voters in 2023 that would have prevented the steep budget cuts enacted this year, Stand For Children Indiana, The Mind Trust, and RISE Indy all disingenuously fought IPS until the referendum was shelved even though the charter schools it advocates for had its own separate funding source not tied to IPS. 

2025 - Silent Consent and Support for 3 Bills Threatening IPS’s Survival  

In 2025 Indiana legislators authored 3 bills aimed at IPS:

• HB 1136 to dissolve IPS 

• HB 1501 to take over IPS facilities and transportation that was ultimately successful as an amendment to HB 1515

• SB 518 to take half of IPS property tax revenue and give to charter schools. 

Stand For Children Indiana had contributed to six out of nine of the legislators involved in these bills including all of the authors. Stand For Children refused to speak out against the bill to dissolve IPS but publicly supported the other two bills to take its assets and property tax revenue. 

2025 - Silent Consent for Lowering Teacher Training Requirements - Social Emotional Learning 

In 2025 Indiana lawmakers passed HB 1002, a massive education deregulation bill that left some Republican legislators complaining “they don’t know how to explain what this does for students and families." Democrats in both chambers voted no and even some Republicans took issue with the bill's cuts made to teacher training requirements around social-emotional learning, trauma-informed care and cultural competency teaching. Stand For Children Indiana would cut checks to four of the six legislators responsible five weeks after the bill passed.   

2025 - Silent Consent for DEFUNDING Pre-K

Stand For Children Colorado and Stand For Children Oregon both supported legislation that brought universal Pre-K to their respective states. Stand For Children Colorado explicitly had it as a goal. On My Way Pre-K was an Indiana program that provided free Pre-K vouchers for 4-year-olds in low-income households. It never was a priority or goal for Stand For Children Indiana to even speak up as funding was being cut for it in 2025. IPS was forced to end free Pre-K in 2025 and reduced cost Pre-K for low income families for 2026. It now costs families $700 a month. Stand For Children Indiana contributed to seven of the nine lawmakers responsible for the rollback of Pre-K statewide.

2026 - Enroll Indy Debacle 

In 2026 IPS decided to leave Enroll Indy, a school enrollment system costing IPS $300,000 a year and also seeded and heavily influenced by The Mind Trust. After previously talking to dozens of IPS parents about their experiences with Enroll Indy, I wrote about its severe equity and transparency problems in a previous Op-Ed. Despite this, Stand For Children Indiana publicly criticized IPS for the move and attempted to pressure them to go back to the flawed enrollment system. Stand for Children Indiana-backed IPS Commissioner Deandra Thompson tried and failed to pass a board resolution to force IPS to stay with Enroll Indy anyway. When I emailed and asked Commissioner Thompson if she could provide any data she’d gathered that determined IPS should continue using it and provide me information on whether any improvements or fixes were underway to address the issues community members have raised with Enroll Indy, she did respond but provided no data or commitments to fixing Enroll Indy. 

Whose Children Did They Stand For or Against? 

Stand For Children Indiana says this about its work: 

“Oftentimes, this focus on ensuring equitable opportunities in our classrooms means we’re supporting parents, teachers and students use their voices and power to address the injustices in our education system that are directly impacting opportunities afforded to Black and Brown students.”

Over one million Indiana households can’t afford the basics. 55% of Black households and 43% of Latino households are classified as the Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed (ALICE) by United Way of Central Indiana. These households are the working poor. In one IPS district zip code, 46218 (Martindale-Brightwood), 68% of all households are barely making ends meet despite working. Certainly these Black and Brown families could benefit from: 

• Free or reduced Pre-K statewide, 

• Culturally competent teachers 

• Teachers with social emotional learning training 

• An IPS school district where budget cuts didn’t eliminate teachers, Pre-K, athletics and extracurricular transportation for tutoring 

Surely these ALICE (working poor) Black and Brown families could benefit from a champion that at least advocated to keep that level of support, rather than shift state funding to private school vouchers for high income households. When Stand for Children Indiana-backed IPS Commissioner Hassan Rashid says Stand for Children Indiana is made up of parents he can’t be talking about the Black and Brown families being railroaded by the Indiana Statehouse with Stand For Children Indiana’s consent, outright support and campaign donations. Stand For Children Indiana has even ran TV and radio commercials to influence conservative lawmakers over Common Core standards but it won’t raise a finger to advocate for programs actually used by Black and Brown families. It more often advocates for defunding institutions helping them. Unlike Stand For Children - Illinois, Oregon, and Colorado that focused on restorative school discipline, free Pre-K or issues that do disproportionately affect marginalized students, Stand For Children Indiana exists to co-opt the voice of Black and Brown Hoosiers. A check of Stand For Children Indiana’s staff page reveals a White-led organization without a single Black staff member that’s been in Indiana more than 2 years. Stand For Children Indiana is a charter school propaganda operation funded by billionaires that uses misinformation, scripted statements and gift cards to entice the few to lend their voice for an organization that doesn’t advocate for their best interests. 

False Friends, Fake Advocacy 

I won’t claim to have had conversations with every Stand For Children Indiana-backed IPS Commissioner or candidate but I’ve had enough to determine they don’t work for IPS families first and foremost. They strategically disappear when needed to use their voice and power as commissioners to advocate for the well being of IPS families over anti-IPS agendas. Then they make excuses for it even though they've been legally appointed or elected to care for IPS families. Legally they should let Indianapolis Public Education Corporation (IPEC) and the billionaire-funded nonprofits support charter schools while they do the job they were sworn in to do for IPS families but they simply won’t.

Stand for Children Indiana-backed candidates mostly fall into two categories: individuals operating beyond their capacity to grasp what's really going on and individuals that do understand but crave proximity to power and believe they’re smarter than everyone else while playing chess to the community’s checkers. This includes District 5 school board candidate, Yuri Smith Sr, running in my district. Despite personally knowing him for the last 6 or 7 years, I privately told him even before Stand for Children Indiana endorsed him that I couldn’t support his school board run because our educational views and values don’t align. Because of this he would later attempt a public smear campaign against me when I refused to allow him to deceive people into thinking I supported his campaign. Stand For Children Indiana has funded 79% of his school board campaign thus far and he’s shown that relationships and ethics are secondary to their priority of him winning by any means necessary.

Stand for Children Indiana is the majority funder in all 5 school board candidates they endorsed this year, not the community or even people from Indiana. Stand For Children Indiana candidates are not running to put out the fire and make things better for IPS families, they’re here to add self-interest, distraction, and confusion to the firefighting efforts while their billionaire-funded backing orgs continue to wreak havoc for parents, teachers, and children. Whether you’re an IPS family, charter family, or even a child-less activist, having a strong IPS fundamentally helps provide stability and infrastructure for everyone now and in the future.

IPS Parent Council Endorsed Candidates 

Please consider voting for these IPS School Board candidates who will stand with our children:

• Dr. Nicole Carey for IPS District 5 (I personally know Dr. Carey, the current IPS commissioner for IPS District 5. She has been and will continue standing up for IPS families.)

• Dr. Bryan Duarte for IPS District 2 (I also personally know Dr. Duarte, and he is the best candidate for this district.)

• Dr. Sacha Sharp for IPS At-Large 

• Lindsey Cornett for IPS District 4 

• Daqavise Winston for IPS District 3

While I haven’t had the opportunity to get to know Dr. Sharp, Cornett, and Winston as well, I have followed their campaigns and statements and know they’re smart individuals that will work for IPS families.